


Of Love, Cake, and Internal Monologue

by AgentBuzzkill



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: All the Clintasha feels, F/M, M/M, get your shit together, seriously you two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 02:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentBuzzkill/pseuds/AgentBuzzkill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t supposed to end in declarations of love. It was supposed to end with fantastic sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Love, Cake, and Internal Monologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my friend Jasmine. I hope this gives you ALL THE CLINTASHA FEELS. 
> 
> The premise of this story was lovingly borrowed from That 70's Show. You'll know which one.

Clint slammed down another shot to the cheers of the crowd.

The crowd being Tony and Thor, as Bruce and Steve (the self-proclaimed "Voices of Reason" and the Tony-proclaimed "Party Poopers") watched on in sympathetic silence.

"So, Katniss," Tony began with one arm around Clint's shoulder and the other not-so-subtly trying to grope Steve--a feat not easily accomplished with the fact that the super soldier was doing everything possible to keep Tony's hand out of his pants and hide the amusement for his boyfriend on his face, "not to undermine the importance of a guys night out, but why the sudden urge to bar crawl?"

"I will admit I have been wondering the same," Thor spoke up from the elaborate coaster castle he was constructing with Bruce on Clint's other side. "What troubles you, friend?"

Clint took hold of the beer that miraculously appeared in front of him courtesy of the sympathetic-looking bartender and sighed. It would be best to get this over with.

"Natasha told me she loves me-"

"Wait, what!?" Tony abandoned assaulting Steve in favor of tightening his grip on Clint. "This is great! Why are you here? You should be making out!" He looked back at Steve. "In fact, why are we here? We could be making out. Let's make out." With that Tony let go of Clint to cling onto Steve, whining about what they could be doing in the bathroom at that moment.

In the midst of wrangling a drunk and horny Tony (a feat not easily accomplished, just ask Pepper), Steve replied, "We're here because Clint asked us to be. I'm pretty sure he wasn't done talking."

Tony looked back to Clint and the men fell silent in anticipation.

Taking a deep breath, Clint continued, "Natasha told me she loves me, and I told her I love cake."

-x-

It wasn’t supposed to end in declarations of love. It was supposed to end with fantastic sex. However, the world seemed to hate Clint. Or at least his sex drive, at any rate.

It went a little something like this:  
They’d been dicking around in the shooting range for a while. Clint had helped Natasha improve her archery as Natasha commented that archery was dumb, even if it wasn’t Clint’s fault that she had a flawless aim with almost any gun but couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a bow and arrow. But he digresses.

They’d been dicking around on the shooting range. Clint could tell she’d had something on her mind but knew by now that bugging her was only going to make her clutch whatever secret she was keeping tighter to her. She’d tell him when and if she was ready, he knew.

He’d had one hand on the curve of her hip, the other helping steady her aim. She was warm where she pressed her back to him and he smiled a bit as she let loose another arrow. It buried itself in the waiting target, a few inches off from the bulls-eye. She scowled, her nose wrinkling and lips curling and he couldn’t help laughing at her expression.  
“Pretty good,” he kissed her temple as she lowered the bow, “with a little more practice you could get even better.”

It was moments like these with her that he treasured, away from the battles and the noise. When it was just the two of them. Don’t get him wrong, Clint loved being an Avenger. He wouldn’t trade it for anything. But a break once in awhile was nice, especially if he could share it with Natasha.

He was lost in his thoughts when she turned around and looked at him. She seemed to consider him for a second or two, and quietly, so quietly Clint almost thought he hadn’t heard it, she said, “I love you, Clint.”

Now it wasn’t much of a secret that they’d been together for years. As allies, then partner, then as whatever you could call their relationship. It wasn’t traditional (nothing about their lives was) and it sure as hell couldn’t be easily classified. But it was something, an open connection to Natasha that only he seemed to have. It had taken years to build the trust between them, to morph what started as sex in the heat of a mission into some semblance of a relationship. Clint had gone into this knowing Natasha didn’t believe in love. He knew from the get-go that whatever he got from her would be more than most got, and he treasured that. If he ever fell in love with her (and Clint was almost positive at this point that that had happened sometime between Paris and Budapest) he knew that even if she didn’t reciprocate his feelings entirely what he was getting from her was the closest thing to love she could give him.  
He’d learned a long time ago, before he’d even met Tasha, that joining SHIELD meant giving up whatever faded dream of a wife, 2.5 kids, and a picket fence he might have had. And he was fine with that, really, this life was better suited for him anyway.

But for a second, just a split second, when Tasha had said that she loved him, he could almost imagine what it would be like to marry her.

Which was ridiculous, of course. Natasha didn’t believe in marriage either, she’d said more than once that “if other women want to tie themselves to the men they supposedly love, if only to give themselves the illusion that mutual affection can last forever, then who am I to judge? it’s hardly for me but hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.” She always called it that. Mutual affection.

So Clint, being the long-lost-Holmes-brother that he sometimes liked to think he was (“A huge-ass trenchcoat, Barton? Really? In the middle of July?” “Oh bite me, Stark, I totally rock this look.”) immediately deduced that Natasha had somehow discovered his feelings for her and was now doing her best to act as though she reciprocated his feelings, no matter how much she didn’t believe in love. And while half of him was jumping for joy, the other half was telling him to stop and think. Because if she was going against her beliefs and lying just to make him feel better, he didn’t want that. Clint wanted Natasha, plain and simple, and he didn’t want her to be pretending she loved him. He didn’t want her to fake anything around him.

Now in the middle of all these thoughts Clint started to notice that the little worry line was appearing on Natasha’s forehead and her smile had faded. And so his mind raced to say anything, do anything, to make that worry go away. To make Natasha understand that he loved her, but he didn’t need her pretending to reciprocate. He didn’t need her to pretend because he loved her when she was simply being herself, red ledger and all.

So Clint blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

“I love cake.”

The shocked and confused silence was just what he needed to make his escape.

-x-

Funny, how her shocked and confused silence was so similar to theirs.

The main difference, however, was that this silence was broken by a loud guffaw from Tony. And then Thor. And even Bruce chuckled a bit.

Steve, being the good American Apple Pie Boy he was always destined to be, only offered Clint a look of sympathy. 

“So you just left?”

“Well yeah!” Clint exclaimed, gesturing with the beer still in his hand, “What was I supposed to do? Stand there and explain myself?”

Steve gave him a “well, duh” look and Clint shook his head.

“I made an ass out of myself. She’s probably so pissed at me. And now she thinks I don’t love her.”

“Uh, Clint-” Tony interjected, but Clint just kept talking, now picking up speed and volume.

“But I do! That’s the worst thing about it, I do love her! And you know she doesn’t believe in love, she thinks that’s all garbage, and I know that. I’ve accepted that! But the idea that she would put aside whatever she believe to make me happier...it’s both the greatest and the worst thing she could ever do. Because I know she cares about me, I do! But she doesn’t have to go pretending to reciprocate feelings she doesn’t have!”

Bruce muttered a gentle, “Clint you might want to-” before he was interrupted too.

“She doesn’t need to pretend. I know she cares about me. I can see it in her eyes and her smile that she has just for me and the way that she gets me up at the asscrack of dawn to train because she knows if I don’t do it then I won’t ever do it and I’ll end up hating myself all day instead of doing something. And when she lets me hold her and curl around her and protect her, even though we both know she can damn well protect herself. But I should go tell her this. I should have told her this before opening my big stupid mouth and blurting the first thing my brain handed me. And I have no idea how to even do that!”

The four men around him were silent and Clint looked around. Four faces stared at something behind him.  
“What are you guys looking at?” He asked before turning and coming face-to-face with-

Well, shit.

“Hi,” Natasha said with a slight frown, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Hey,” Clint choked out, “how much of that-”

“Enough to know what’s going on.” She grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him off the barstool and to his feet. “Let’s go somewhere a bit more private.”

-x-

Tony's loud catcalls were muffled by the sound of the door closing behind them, and the sounds of the bar faded to background noise amidst a winter night in New York. A light snow drifted down, dusting the streets. 

Natasha walked ahead of him, leading him to a small alley a few buildings down from the bar. Her footsteps made a soft crunch in the snow, and Clint found himself stepping in her footprints, following the trail she left behind her just by watching the ground. 

When she finally stopped and turned, arms crossed, eyes questioning, Clint felt something in him shift into defensive mode. He angled himself slightly away from her, leaning against the wall.  

"You know, my mother always told me to never follow sultry women into alleys." he watched the way his breath caught the light of the streetlights leaking into the alley, how it twisted and turned before dissipating completely. 

"Clint," she replied, "look at me."

Hesitating only slightly, he did. 

The slap didn't hurt much, but the noise of her palm on his cheek echoing around him made it sound like it should have.

"Cake?" she demanded, "Really? Of all the possible deterrents, you pick cake?"

"It just happened," he shrugged, one hand raised to rub at the fading sting on his cheek. Part of him hoped she left a mark. "I wasn't thinking."

"No, you were thinking," she said, stepping closer, "what you weren't doing was talking like we said we would if one of us had something important to say."

"What did you want me to say!?" he yelled. Suddenly he was so fed up with everything. With not talking, with overthinking, with avoiding and running and drinking and-

"I wanted you to tell me the truth," Natasha said, and her eyes lowered. Almost absentmindedly, she fixed the collar of the jacket he'd managed to pull on before leaving the bar. "Do you love me?" She spoke to her hands. 

"Does it matter?" he asked quietly. At that she looked up and met his eyes. He saw a spark in them. A fire nearly as bright as the red waves that tumbled around her face. 

"I heard what you said," she replied, "I know what you think I believe. And it's true...for the longest time I didn't believe in love, because I couldn't find anyone who I could ever imagine loving."

She paused, and one if her hands drifted down his chest, rested over his heart. She leaned closer, and almost instinctively his arms encircled her. 

"But then I imagined loving you," Natasha continued. "And I-I couldn't help myself from wanting that. I know you tell yourself you don't care if I love you, but I know that for the longest time you have felt something for me and felt that I couldn't reciprocate."

"You don't have to-"

"I'm not lying," she insisted. "Clint, I love you."

He looked at her then, at the tip of her nose red with cold, and the snowflakes in her hair, mingling with her dark eyelashes. Her eyes, so clear, trying to tell him everything she couldn't say. And this time, he knew how to respond. 

"I love you, Natasha," he replied before tilting his head to meet her soft lips with his. And suddenly, he felt a whole lot warmer. 

**Author's Note:**

> ADDED 12/15: I just checked and realized this has 1000+ views. Holy crap. I just. I love you all. 
> 
> Comments and criticisms are appreciated! Thank you for reading!
> 
> Also, expect a smutty sequel to this soon.


End file.
